they can figure out how to provide us plain text." >>shepard: thank you. a couple of missions to report from afghanistan. first, to the southern afghanistan where marines are moving across dry rocky ter rain as militants open fire. look at this. there is a compound here to the southeast of us. come on. come on. all right. hit that compound. that compound there. that is to the west. boom, boom, boom, boom. (machine gunfire). >> you guys have to support your selfs for a minute. >>shepard: this is done 100 miles from where u.s. troops have launched another major offensive. the mission they say is to seize the area, the birthplace and the heartland of the taliban. and our correspondent is streaming live from afghanistan. analysts say a win here is crucial to the president's strategy. >>reporter: commanders have said the war cannot be won in afghanistan unless insurgency is defeated in this area here in afghanistan. and now the taliban, this is the home and an important base of operations for the taliban across southern afghanistan and they use this city to sup